Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 255–273, 2004  2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0160-7383/$30.00 www.elsevier.com/locate/atoures doi:10.1016/j.annals.2003.10.003 NO-ESCAPE NATURAL DISASTER Mitigating Impacts on Tourism Tzung-Cheng Huan National Chia-yi University, Taiwan Jay Beaman Auctor Consulting Associates, USA Lori Shelby Colorado State University, USA Abstract: The 1999 Taiwan earthquake destroyed infrastructure and seriously damaged tourists’ relationships to a popular destination area. Studies for agencies yielded information requested and raised questions about research methodology for understanding the impact of natural disasters from which there is no lead-time to escape. It is argued that in order to mitigate impacts of no-escape natural disasters on tourism, special research on the psycho- logical and behavioral consequences of fear and risk are needed. Study of how fear and perceived risk of no-escape natural disaster influence placement of a destination in evoked sets is proposed as critical for more effective decision-making. A travel decision theory based research framework and related survey methodology are introduced. Keywords: disaster, earthquake, Taiwan, travel decision theory.  2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Re ´sume ´: Catastrophe naturelle no-escape: l’atte ´nuation des impacts sur le tourisme. Le tremblement de terre de 1999 a ` Taı ¨wan a de ´truit une partie de l’infrastructure et a endomm- age ´ se ´rieusement la relation des touristes a ` la re ´gion d’une destination populaire. Des recherches faites pour des agences ont rendu les renseignements qu’on avait demande ´s et ont souleve ´ des questions sur la me ´thodologie de recherche pour comprendre l’impact des catastrophes naturelles auxquelles il n’y a pas de temps pour e ´chapper. On soutient que, pour atte ´nuer les impacts sur le tourisme des catastrophes naturelles no-escape, il faut des recherches spe ´ciales sur les conse ´quences psychologiques et comportementales de la peur et du risque. Une e ´tude de comment la peur et la perception du risque d’une catastrophe naturelle no-escape influencent le positionnement d’une destination dans les ensembles e ´vo- que ´s est propose ´e comme essentiel pour prendre des de ´cisions efficaces. On pre ´sente un cadre the ´orique pour la recherche base ´e sur une the ´orie de de ´ cision de voyage et une me ´tho- dologie d’enque ˆte connexe. Mots-cle ´s: catastrophe, tremblement de terre, Taı ¨wan, the ´orie de de ´cision de voyage.  2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. INTRODUCTION Tourism frequently copes with natural and human disasters that dev- astate the industry in a particular area. For example, the 1989 San Tzung-Cheng Huan is Assistant Professor in the Graduate Institute of Manapnent, National Chia-yi University (Chia-yi, Taiwan. Email <tchuan@mail.ncyu.edu.tw>). His research inter- ests include practical and theoretical tourism studies. Jay Beaman, consultant, adjunct faculty with Colorado State University and an affiliate of National Chai-yi University, conducts research on tourist behavior and analysis methodology. Lori Shelby is a graduate student at Colorado State University. 255